Jaime Balmes - Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

195. We find it, in these passages, expressly taught that there is within us something besides what we have acquired by experience, in which point the scholastics all agree with the defenders of innate ideas. The difference between them is this: the former do not consider the intellectual light to suffice for knowledge, if the forms or species upon which it may reflect are wanting; the latter distinguish the light from the colors, and them they make originate in the light itself.

196. The question of innate ideas, so warmly contested in the schools of philosophy, would never have presented so great difficulties, had it been stated with proper clearness. To do this it was necessary to classify the inward phenomena called ideas in a corresponding manner, and to determine with accuracy the sense of the word innate .

197. According to what we have already said, we hold that there are in our mind sensible representations; intellectual action upon them, or geometrical ideas; ideas purely intellectual, either intuitive or non-intuitive; and general determinate and indeterminate ideas. I will give examples of these cases that they may the better be understood. A particular triangle is represented in our imagination; here, then, is a sensible representation: intellectual act perceiving the nature of the triangle considered in general; here is a geometrical idea, an idea relating to the sensible order: cognition of one of our acts of understanding or will; here is a pure and intuitive idea: intelligence, will, conceived in general; here is a general determinate idea: substance; here finally is a general indeterminate idea. 15 15 See Chs. XII. and XIII.

198. What is understood by innate? That which is not born, which the mind possesses, not acquired by its own labor, nor by impressions coming from the exterior, but by the immediate gift of the author of its nature; the innate is opposed to the acquired, and to inquire if there are innate ideas is to inquire if we have in our mind ideas, before receiving any impressions or doing any act.

199. It cannot be maintained that sensible representations are innate. Experience testifies that without the impressions of the organs we cannot have representations corresponding to them; that once these are placed in action in a proper manner, we cannot help experiencing them. This is applicable to all sensations, whether they be actual, existing, or only recollected. They who undertake to maintain that sensible representations exist in our soul previously to all organic impressions, also advance an opinion unsustainable either by facts of experience or by arguments a priori .

200. It is to be remarked, that the argument founded upon the impossibility of the body's transmitting impressions to the mind, proves nothing in favor of the opinion we combat. Even were the argument conclusive, the necessity of innate ideas could not thence be inferred, since the physical non-communication of the body and the mind would be saved in the system of occasional causes, and it could at the same time be argued that there are no pre-existing ideas, but that they have been caused in the presence, and on occasion of organic affections.

201. Ideas relative to sensible representations seem to consist, not in forms of the understanding, but in its acts exercised upon these same representations. 16 16 See Ch. XX.

To call these ideas innate is to contradict experience, and even to ignore their nature. These acts cannot be performed if the object, which is the sensible representation be wanting; and this does not exist without an impression of the corporeal organs. To call these ideas innate, has then, either no meaning at all, or can mean nothing else than the pre-existence of the intellectual activity, subsequently developed in the presence of sensible intuitions.

202. Neither can those intuitive ideas, not referable to sensibility, such as are those we have when reflecting upon the acts of understanding and will, be innate. What in this case serves as the idea, is the very same act of the understanding or of the will which is presented to our perception in consciousness: to say, then, that these ideas are innate is equivalent to saying that these acts exist before they exist. Even when the perception does not refer to present acts, but to past acts now recollected, the argument retains the same force: for it can have no recollection of them if they have not previously existed, since our acts cannot exist before we have performed them.

203. Hence it may be inferred that no intuitive idea is innate, since intuition supposes an object presented to the faculty of perception.

204. General determinate ideas are those which refer to an intuition: they cannot, therefore, exist before it: and since, on the other hand, intuition is impossible without an act, it follows that these ideas cannot be innate.

205. Last of all remain general indeterminate ideas, that is to say, those which of themselves alone offer to the mind, nothing either existing or possible. 17 17 See Ch. XXI. If we observe carefully the nature of these ideas, we shall see that they are nothing else than perceptions of one aspect of an object considered under a general reason. It cannot be doubted, that one of the characteristics of intelligence is the perception of these aspects; and it is no less indubitable, that it does not thence follow, that we must imagine these ideas to a kind of forms pre-existing in our mind, and distinct from the acts by which it exercises its perceptive faculty. We do not see what ground there can be for affirming these ideas to be innate, and to have lain hidden in our mind previously to the development of all activity, just like things stowed away in the corners of a museum, closed however to the curiosity of spectators.

206. Instead of abandoning ourselves to similar suppositions, it would seem that we ought to recognize in the mind an innate activity, subject to the laws imposed upon it by its Creator, the infinite intelligence. Even granting ideas to be distinct from perceptive acts, it is not necessary to admit them as pre-existing. True, that in such a case it would be necessary to recognize in the mind a faculty productive of the representative species, from which, however, we should not escape by identifying ideas with perceptions. These last are acts springing, so to speak, from the very bottom of our soul, and which appear and disappear like the flowers of a plant: and thus we must in every way recognize in ourselves a power which in due circumstances will not fail to produce what before did not exist. Without this it is impossible to form any idea of what activity is.

207. Resuming the doctrine thus far delivered upon innate ideas, we can reduce it to a formula in the following manner:

I. There are in us sensitive faculties which are developed by organic impressions, either as cause or occasion.

II. We perceive nothing by the senses not subject to the laws of organism.

III. Internal sensible representations cannot be formed of other elements than those furnished by sensations.

IV. Whatever is said concerning the pre-existence of sensible representations to organic impressions, besides being said without any reason, is in contradiction with experience.

V. Geometrical ideas, or ideas relating to sensible intuitions, are not innate; since they are the acts of the understanding which operates upon materials provided by the sensibility.

VI. Intuitive ideas of the intellectual order are not innate, because they are nothing else than the acts of the understanding or will, presented to our perception in reflex consciousness.

VII. General determinate ideas are not innate, since they are the representation of intuitions, upon which some act has of necessity been performed.